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Kathleen Hanna

Kathleen Hanna Quotes

Musician

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Famous Kathleen Hanna Quotes

“I stood in the bay window at our house and I sang Away In A Manger. It was my first time on stage, but there was nobody watching. I just remember it was so natural and it was such a secret - like masturbating. I felt like I had to wait until everybody was gone. So I guess six years old would be my most important age, 'cause in that moment, I just knew what I wanted to do.”

“I got hit up for a tampon commercial and so I asked [JD and Jo] if they had anything. Jo sent that over and I was like, "I love this track. Oh my god. It's so upbeat. It's so positive. It would be so great for a tampon commercial." That commercial never came through, so then I just had it. I was like, "That would be great for a Hillary [Clinton] song." I think it's so funny that it could be a tampon commercial.”

“I'm not sure Riot Grrrl would have been as big a deal if the Internet had existed back then. Because there's so much stuff on the Internet. People could have been like, oh, whatever, I'm going to go look at pictures of Barbie vaginas, you know what I mean? There's so many different things on the Internet, you read one article and then you read something linked off that article and you go down the rabbit hole.”

“My illness has changed me - I've always thought "life is short and I wanna make as much of it as I can," but I really don't have time to mess around. This has really been a wake-up call in terms of what's important, and I'm working hard to figure that out. I need to get better at not doing favors for people all the time. It's hard because there's so many people who have helped me get to the point where I'm in a band that people wanna come see, or where people pay money to see me lecture.”

“My advice for someone who wants to be creative but has a chronic illness is to think of something that you can do as opposed to all the things you can't do - and do that. It's just like gardening: What can grow in this soil? There's some soil you can grow roses in and some soil you can only grow cactuses in, so if you can only grow cactuses, become the best cactus grower in the whole world. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing. Find something that makes you happy. Don't get down on yourself that you can't run a 4K or dance all night long at a fun club. Give yourself a break.”

“I always get ‘What’s wrong?’ or ‘Lighten up.’ Half the time, when guys tell me to smile, I’m not even frowning, I’m thinking! Then I’m like, Oh! Some men don’t want women to think! Do they all have walkie-talkies? Are they all in this together? Like, ‘OK, she’s thinking, someone say something. She’s reading, go distract her.’ It starts feeling like that sometimes, doesn’t it?”